An Introduction toInbound Marketing

Introduction to Inbound Marketing

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Introduction to Inbound Marketing

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. What is Inbound Marketing? 3..........................................................................2. How Does Inbound Marketing Work? 4............................................................3. Search Engine Optimization: How to Formulate a Keyword Strategy 6..........4. Fundamentals Every Website Should Have 9..................................................5. Get Started With Content Marketing 10..........................................................6. Social Media for Inbound Marketing 13............................................................7. Don’t Underestimate Email Marketing 16........................................................8. Capturing Leads With Downloadable Assets 18.............................................9. Marketing Automation 20..................................................................................10. Measuring Inbound Marketing Results 21.....................................................Further Reading & Resources 24.........................................................................List of Inbound Marketing Tools 26......................................................................About Venture Accelerator Partners 27...............................................................

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Introduction to Inbound Marketing

1. What is Inbound Marketing?Inbound marketing uses marketing activities to attract customers and leads, rather than outbound marketing, such as cold calling and ads, which relies on interruption techniques to get prospects' attention.

Unlike outbound marketing, inbound marketing is customer-centric and focuses on providing content and resources when and where customers are looking for that information.

In both inbound and outbound marketing, each potential customer, whether it’s a person or a company, is considered a “lead”. Leads can be individuals who interact with the content on your website, sign-up for a newsletter, or someone who has been referred to you by others. Generally, anyone who provides you with his or her email address or phone number can be considered a lead.

WHY INBOUND MARKETING?Compared to traditional outbound marketing activities, such as television ads, direct mail, or website ads, leads from inbound marketing are less than half the cost: $37 vs. $102 for companies with 1-25 employees; $70 vs. $220 for companies with 51-200 employees; and $27 vs. $45 for companies with over 200 employees.

Inbound marketing is especially valuable for startups, small and medium businesses that have a limited budget and resources to promote their products or services. The content you create during the inbound marketing process also helps potential clients and partners see you as a subject matter expert. In addition, the material can also be used to support any outbound sales efforts.

How to Generate Leads With Inbound Marketing

There are a number of ways you can generate leads through inbound marketing. We will discuss each of these in the following sections of this guide:

1. Website2. Content Marketing3. Social Media4. Email Newsletters5. Downloadable Assets6. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

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DID YOU KNOW?

Inbound marketing delivers 54% more leads into the marketing funnel than traditional outbound sales, and companies that blog generate 126% more leads than those that don’t.

Source: HubSpot

Introduction to Inbound Marketing

2. How Does Inbound Marketing Work?Inbound marketing is based on creating and sharing content that’s relevant to potential customers in order to attract prospects to your company. Fundamentally, inbound marketing is having prospects find you, converting them using digital marketing to a lead, and eventually turning them into a customer.

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We use inbound marketing with a number of clients and found it to be a very successful sales and marketing tactic. In fact, one of our clients was able to triple their website traffic and inbound leads within a month of working with us.

Below are the three essential parts of a successful inbound marketing strategy.

1. GETTING READERS TO YOUR SITEAt the core of inbound marketing is having a prospect discover you. There are several ways to do this, but the best way is to create great content. This could be a blog post, a YouTube video, or a great guide. This helps people get to your site through search engines.

To create relevant content, determine the questions that a prospect is asking as they go through the buying process and create content to complement all stages of the buying process. In addition to creating content, you should make sure it is search engine optimized (SEO). This is not only for your blog posts, but other pages on your website as well. You can also write guest blog posts on other websites that help people find you through those other sites.

Another way for people to discover your content is through sharing on social media which acts as a referral to bring readers to your website. Sharing on the right channels for your business can lead to new people discovering your brand.

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The Inbound Marketing Process (source: HubSpot)

Introduction to Inbound Marketing

2. TURNING TRAFFIC INTO LEADSOnce you get people to your site, the goal is to turn them into a lead. There are several ways to do this.

Make sure it is easy for people to get in touch with you. Not simply with a form capture, but give them the ability to email you or call on the phone. You can also have email newsletter sign-ups, white papers, or other downloadable assets. You can use these assets to collect details like name, company and email address from prospects

3. CLOSING THE LEADThere are many ways to proceed once you have an inbound lead.

If you have the budget and a large volume of leads you can use a marketing automation tool to help feed the prospect with applicable information. However, even with marketing automation, there still needs to be a salesperson available to walk the prospect across the finish line. Central to this process is having a customer relationship management (CRM) system. This will help you track and qualify the inbound lead.

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DID YOU KNOW?

Inbound leads from social media, email marketing, blogs and SEO cost 61% less than outbound leads from trade shows, ads, telemarketing and PPC.

Source: HubSpot

Introduction to Inbound Marketing

3. Search Engine Optimization: How to Formulate a Keyword Strategy Over 90% of people use search engines for product research, which means that search engine optimization (SEO) is more important than ever for your business.

SEO is the process of increasing the number of visitors who find your website through search engines. Aspects of SEO include optimizing the content on your page, using the right keywords, and linking from other websites.

The phrases that people use when they search are known as “keywords” and a keyword strategy will systematically ensure that your website is using the phrases that people are searching for. Here’s an introduction to finding the right keywords and creating relevant content.

1. BRAINSTORM 5-10 KEYWORDS RELATED TO YOUR PRODUCT/SERVICE

For each service or product your business offers, think of 5-10 keywords, phrases or questions that a potential customer might search for when they are interested in that offering.

For example, if you offer website development services for businesses, phrases a target customer who’s considering a new website might search are:

• Website development services• Custom website development• Web design company• Affordable website developers• What makes a good website?

2. CHECK KEYWORD FREQUENCY To check if people actually search for that product/service and to find variations of the phrases you should be aware of, use the free Google Keyword Planner (http://adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner). After you enter phrases, the tool will output the estimated searches per month on the keywords you entered, as well as related keywords.

A higher number of monthly searches indicate more interest in that topic. On the other hand, if there’s no data in the “Avg. monthly searches” column, it means people aren’t looking for that product or they are looking for it under a

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DID YOU KNOW?

90% of B2B researchers who are online use search specifically to research business purchases.

Source: The Changing Face of B2B Marketing, Think With Google, March 2015

Introduction to Inbound Marketing

different phrase. It’s generally better to center your website or blog post around phrases that gets more searches, rather than none.

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3. CHECK KEYWORD DIFFICULTY One way to gauge how competitive a term is, check the results for that term by searching for it in a search engine or Google. Are all the results on the first and second page from large and reputable websites?

Another strategy is to use a tool, such as KWFinder (https://kwfinder.com) which shows you the average monthly searches, related searches and data on the top search rankings for that keyword.

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The Google Keyword Planner Tool lets you to see search volumes for different keywords.

A keyword difficulty tool that displays information on who is currently ranking for that term.

Introduction to Inbound Marketing

4. CONSIDER KEYWORDS WHEN DESIGNING YOUR WEBSITEYour company website should have at least one page dedicated to each product or service you offer. Even though it’s challenging to rank well in search results for common terms like “website development services”, your website should still have a page to describe your services to potential customers.

To address phrases and questions that are related to your product or services, such as the “what makes a good website” phrase in our example, writing a blog post is a great way to rank for those searches.

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Introduction to Inbound Marketing

4. Fundamentals Every Website Should HaveYour website is an integral part in facilitating your inbound marketing strategy. Here are elements your website should have to execute your inbound marketing plans.

CONTACT US FORMHave a form on your contact page that potential customers or partners can fill out to connect with you. If your website is built with WordPress, you can use plugins such as Contact Form 7 (http://wordpress.org/plugins/contact-form-7) or Gravity Forms (http://www.gravityforms.com, $39) to create the form.

EMAIL AND PHONE NUMBERWebsite visitors should be able to easily see your contact information, no matter what page they arrive on at your site. Ensure your phone number and email address is prominently displayed at the footer or header of every page on your website.

SOCIAL BUTTONSFollow buttons – add follow buttons for the social networks your company is active on, such as on the blog sidebar and website footer.

Social sharing buttons – add social media add buttons on blog posts to let readers share relevant content with their social networks. You can use plugin such as AddThis (http://www.addthis.com).

DIGITAL ASSET DOWNLOADTo promote your downloadable white papers or guides, you can display banner images on the sidebar of your blog, underneath blog posts, or in a popover.

EMAIL NEWSLETTER SIGN-UPEmail forms on your website is a great way to collect subscribers. You can place forms on the blog sidebar, in a popover or as a slide-in when readers get to the bottom of a blog post. Your email software provides code snippets you can use, or you can build your own form with plugins like SumoMe (http://sumome.com) or LeadIn (https://en-ca.wordpress.org/plugins/leadin) that connects to the email provider you’re such as MailChimp (http://mailchimp.com).

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Introduction to Inbound Marketing

5. Get Started With Content Marketing Content marketing involves creating, publishing and sharing content that helps generate leads or retain existing customers. Content is an essential ingredient of inbound marketing, especially for B2B businesses where 57% of a purchase decision is made before the customer talks to a supplier.

In addition, content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing and generates about 3 times as many leads. 

CREATING RELEVANT CONTENTYou want to be writing about topics that are interesting to your audience. Think about who your audience is and how the content could benefit them. Creating helpful and authoritative content will entice others to share your blog posts and in turn drive more traffic to your website.

Consider the top questions and objections your potential customers have during the entire sales cycle, from awareness to before they purchase. Enter these topics into Google’s free Keyword Planner Tool (http://adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner) to verify that people search for those themes and create content that address those common questions.

COMMON CONTENT FORMATSBlog posts

Blog posts are articles that range from 300 to 1,000+ words on topics that potential customers would be interested in and that relate to your product or service.

Types of blog posts can include:

• List of tips and tricks• How-to guides• Opinion and analysis• Answers to common questions• Lists of upcoming industry events

Original blog posts are very effective for driving website traffic from search engines on a regular basis.

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Introduction to Inbound Marketing

White papers and guides

White papers and guides are similar to blog posts, but are generally longer, more detailed, and presented in a downloadable PDF format. Unlike blog posts, white papers and guides are usually gated content, which means the reader has to provide their email or other information before they can download the document.

Videos

Videos can be more engaging than reading text in blog posts and effective at explaining complex concepts or a lot of information in a short period of time. Video formats can include animations, screencasts, talking heads or teaching on a whiteboard. Tools for creating videos include GoAnimate (http://goanimate.com) for animated videos, and Camtasia (http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.html) for screen recordings.

Infographics

Infographics are visual representation of data, instructions or stories. Infographics have become more common in the recent years, and can be more engaging than blog post text when it comes to displaying data, charts and tables. Free tools to get started with creating infographics include Piktochart (http://piktochart.com) and Venngage (http://venngage.com).

DISTRIBUTING YOUR CONTENTSocial media

Sharing your content on social media is one of the easiest ways to amplify your content because your followers are already interested in your company. In addition, you can encourage your team members to re-share content on their personal networks as well.

Include social sharing icons above or below your blog posts so that visitors can easily share your content on their social networks. If your website is on WordPress, free plugins like AddThis (https://wordpress.org/plugins/addthis) or Digg Digg (http://wordpress.org/plugins/digg-digg) can add the icons for you.

Newsletters

If you have a company newsletter, include links or excerpts to content such as company news, blog posts or infographics. This can be value-added content to your subscribers and a great way to show that you’re a thought-leader.

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DID YOU KNOW?

70% of consumers say they prefer getting to know a company via articles, videos and content rather than ads.

Source: 104 Fascinating Social Media and Marketing Facts, business2community.com

Introduction to Inbound Marketing

CALLS-TO-ACTIONOne of the most important features of a blog is the call-to-action. This is usually located at the bottom of your blog post and prompts your reader to take the next step. Your call-to-action can include anything from a newsletter or webinar sign-up to a white paper download.

MEASURING EFFECTIVENESSAnalytics can be very powerful in helping to understand what is working for your content marketing and what is not working. Set not only engagement targets like pageviews, but also conversions.

Look for trends in:

• The types of content that get the most views/shares, e.g. long-form blog posts, short blog posts, infographics, videos or guides

• The types of titles that get the most clicks, e.g. how-to blog posts, numbered lists or questions

• The days or times when different types of content get the most views or shares

• The conversion rates for different calls-to-actions or other forms, such as white paper download forms

Based on these insights, you can modify your tactics, including the types and length of the content you’re producing, their titles, and when to share or post.

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Google Analytics tracks visits on your websites and on individual pages.

Introduction to Inbound Marketing

6. Social Media for Inbound MarketingAccording to a recent report by Social Media Examiner, over half of marketers with at least one year of social media experience were generating leads with social platforms. In addition, 3 in 5 small and medium businesses say they've gained new customers by using social media.

Benefits of using social media include:

1. Building Awareness – Customers are more likely to buy from brands that are familiar to them and social media is an effective and low-cost way to build familiarity. In fact, 92% of all marketers indicate that social media efforts have generated more exposure for their businesses. 

2. Staying Top of Mind – The average person spends 2.5 hours a day on social media; staying relevant means going where your customers spend their time and interacting with them there.

3. Being Seen as Subject Matter Expert – Become your prospects’ go-to source for industry news and education by regularly sharing relevant and valuable articles and resources.

Although there’s a large range of social networks, from Facebook to Pinterest, for B2B startups and growing businesses, two essential social networks are LinkedIn and Twitter.

LINKEDINLinkedin (http://www.linkedin.com) is a professional social network with more than 347 million members worldwide. In addition to personal profiles, Linkedin also has company pages and groups.

LinkedIn is particularly effective for inbound marketing for B2B companies because everyone in the network is there for professional purposes. The search abilities let you identify potential leads because profiles show titles and employers; company pages show the number of employees and the ability to post updates via both your personal and company profile allows you to stay top-of-mind with prospects.

What to share: Company news, blog posts, industry articles and guidesHow often to share: Twice a week to once per dayWhen to share: During weekdays from 7:30 to 8:30 a.m., 12 p.m., 5 to 6 p.m.

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DID YOU KNOW?

84% of marketers see increased website traffic by investing as little as 6 hours a week in social media marketing.

Source: 16 Stats That Prove Social Media Isn’t Just a Fad, HubSpot.

Introduction to Inbound Marketing

TWITTERTwitter (http://twitter.com) is a social networking service that enables users to send and read short 140-character messages called "tweets". Twitter has over 288 million active users and over 500 million Tweets are sent a day.

What to share: Company news, blog posts, industry articles and guides; inspiring or entertaining quotes (occasionally)How often to share: 2-10 updates a dayWhen to share: During weekdays in the afternoon to evening

YOUTUBE & VIMEOVideo is one of the biggest up-and-coming marketing mediums, and according to a Cisco study, video will account for 69% of internet traffic by 2017. Two of the largest video social media platforms today are YouTube and Vimeo, with YouTube currently being the second largest search engine after Google with over 3 billion searches a month.

Ideas for videos include screen recordings, animated videos, and talking head videos.

FACEBOOK, INSTAGRAM, PINTERESTOther major social media networks include Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. Although these are generally more used for B2C businesses than B2B businesses, you should consider if these platforms are a good fit for your business.

FINDING THE BEST TIME TO POSTGet the most out of your social media updates by posting them at times when more of your followers are active or most likely to engage with the update. Tools that can help determine the best time for your specific followers include Tweriod (http://www.tweriod.com) and Followerwonk (https://moz.com/followerwonk).

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Introduction to Inbound Marketing

MANAGING MULTIPLE SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTSWhen you become active on multiple social media accounts, using a social media scheduling app can make the process of finding and posting updates more efficient. Apps such as Buffer (http://bufferapp.com) and Hootsuite (http://hootsuite.com) allow you to schedule updates to Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook pages ahead of time.

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Hootsuite social media management web dashboard.

Introduction to Inbound Marketing

7. Don’t Underestimate Email Marketing

Email is an effective tool for capturing new leads, as well as nurturing existing leads.

Despite the rise in the use of social media networks, marketers still rank email to be the best channel in terms of return on investment, with 68% of companies rating the channel as good or excellent. In fact, according to a study from McKinsey & Company, email is 40 times better at acquiring new customers than Facebook and Twitter, with conversions being 17% higher value than on social media.

SETTING UP AN EMAIL NEWSLETTER There are email solutions, such as MailChimp (http://mailchimp.com) and Campaign Monitor (http://www.campaignmonitor.com), that are free or low cost (under $9/month) that allow you to easily create and send newsletters. These solutions also include tools and analytics to help you optimize subject lines and track who opened or clicked your newsletter.

WHAT SHOULD YOU INCLUDE IN YOUR NEWSLETTER?Content you should include in your newsletter can range from summaries of your blog posts, links to third party articles, events and special offers.

MailChimp’s sample gallery of newsletters is a great place for inspiration: http://inspiration.mailchimp.com.

SETTING A REGULAR SCHEDULEA regularly scheduled newsletter helps you plan future editions and sets an expectation for subscribers. If you’re new to email marketing, a quarterly or monthly schedule is a good starting frequency. You can also do email blasts when you have new promotions or offers.

ADDING SUBSCRIBERSMake it easy for people to opt-in to your email newsletter by displaying a sign-up form on your company’s website or blog. Most email service providers can generate a code snippet that can be inserted into your website to create a form. You can also collect subscribers at company events by having attendees sign-up on a form.

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DID YOU KNOW?

70% of email readers open emails from a brand or company in search of a deal, discount, or coupon, email is 40x more successful at acquiring new clients than Facebook and Twitter.

Source: 20 email marketing statistics to help you prove how awesome email is, Campaign Monitor.

Introduction to Inbound Marketing

USING EMAIL ANALYTICS FOR SALES & MARKETINGEmail newsletter providers have analytics reports that tracks which recipients opened or clicked on links in the newsletter. Your sales team can see which contacts clicked on specific articles, and when a contact’s email bounces back, which can be a sale triggers. The marketing team can also use analytics to refine the format and content to maximize engagement.

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ADVANCED EMAIL MARKETING: EMAIL AUTOMATIONOnce you become familiar with basic email campaigns, you can take email marketing to the next level with automation. Email automation uses triggers to automatically send emails to individuals based on workflows you create.

Examples of this are sending welcome emails when new subscribers first join your list, e-cards if it’s a recipient’s birthday, or additional emails with specific content based on links the recipient clicked in a past newsletter. Most email providers, such as MailChimp, offer email automation features. To learn more about email automation, read this guide from MailChimp: http://mailchimp.com/resources/guides/working-with-automation/html.

COMPLYING WITH ANTI-SPAM LEGISLATIONOn July 1, 2014, Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) took effect to regulate the sending of commercial electronic messages. The intent of the legislation is to protect individuals from spam and mass untargeted, unsolicited messages. Having a sign-up form is the best way to ensure you are compliant with CASL for newsletters since the recipients have specifically opted-in.

Visit the official Canada Anti-Spam Legislation website at http://fightspam.gc.ca to learn more about the law.

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MailChimp’s dashboard provides insights on your email campaigns.

Introduction to Inbound Marketing

8. Capturing Leads With Downloadable Assets

WHAT ARE DOWNLOADABLE ASSETS?Downloadable assets are content presented as guides, checklists, white papers or detailed reports that potential customers can download which solves a problem for them or answers a question. In exchange for getting access to the content, the potential customer has to fill out a form giving their contact information such as their name and email.

Once you’ve created the downloadable asset, here are 5 tips to help you promote the content to capture leads.

1. CREATING A LANDING PAGEA landing page is a web page that has been designed for a single focused objective or campaign. The only goal of a landing page for a white paper is to get the reader to fill out a form with their information, such as their name and email, in exchange for access to the content.

The best practices for designing landing pages are very different from a regular page on your company website. To make the creation and optimization process easier, there are third party tools, specifically to design landing pages, such as Unbounce (http://unbounce.com), Leadpages (https://www.leadpages.net) and Lander (http://landerapp.com).

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An example of a well-designed landing page.

Introduction to Inbound Marketing

2. EMAIL YOUR NEWSLETTER SUBSCRIBERSEmailing existing customers, prospects and partners is a great way to promote your white paper. These are contacts that will find your white paper highly relevant since they are interested in your business and the business challenges you help them solve.

To promote your white paper, you can send an email solely for the purpose of announcing the white paper, or you can include it as part of your regular newsletter.

3. SHARE ON SOCIAL MEDIASharing a link to the landing page of your white paper on your social media channels such as Twitter or LinkedIn is a great way to promote it. If you also have business contacts or other contacts whose audience might find it relevant, you can also ask them to share the asset on their own networks.

Don’t be shy to share the link at regular intervals, such as once a week, in case you have new followers, or existing followers who haven’t seen your previous updates.

4. ANNOUNCE IT ON A BLOG POSTAnnouncing the white paper on your blog is a good way to reach people who are subscribed to your RSS feed or who regularly visit your blog. In the blog post, you can give a teaser of the white paper by showing a selection of excerpts, diagrams/charts or take-aways from the white paper.

5. BANNERS AND CALL-TO-ACTIONS ON YOUR WEBSITE OR BLOGPut a banner on your website, on the sidebar, or at the bottom of blog posts linking to your white paper to reach readers who are on your website for the first-time, or for regular readers who haven’t downloaded your white paper yet.

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Example of a call-to-action from the salesforce.com blog for a download.

Introduction to Inbound Marketing

9. Marketing AutomationMarketing automation is the automation of repetitive or predictable marketing tasks such as emails, lead scoring and task assignment.

As the volume of your leads increase, this software saves you time by allowing you to create workflows to automate things like sending sequences of emails, or assigning followups. For example, if a lead visits your website’s pricing page more than five times, you can trigger an email to ask if they have questions or send them a limited time promotional offer.

Marketing automation is only a tool to help you track information and perform tasks faster. It is not a substitute for inbound marketing activities such as creating content for your blog, writing white papers or posting on social media.

MARKETING AUTOMATION APPSIf you want to see marketing automation works, below are a few options. Most offer a free 30-day trial without requiring you to speak with a sales person.

• Active Campaign (http://www.activecampaign.com) - starts at $49/month• Get Response (https://www.getresponse.com) - starts at $49/month• HubSpot (https://www.hubspot.com) - starts at $200/month• Pardot (https://www.pardot.com) - starts at $1,000/month

ADVANTAGES

• Marketing automation software takes time to set up, but can save you time in the long-term by creating a repository of information on leads and by reducing the amount of manual repetitive tasks.

DISADVANTAGES

• The software takes time to learn and workflows take time to set-up and maintain; be prepared to spend at least a few full days initially to learn the software and a few days a month going forward to maintaining and using the software.

• The number of leads coming in and leads you’re nurturing has to reach a certain volume before the software and time investment makes sense. For example, if you only have three new leads per month, it might be cheaper and easier to just do everything yourself for now.

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Introduction to Inbound Marketing

10. Measuring Inbound Marketing Results Tracking results from your activities is an essential part of your inbound marketing strategy. These learnings can help you identify the channels and methods that work the best for your business and lets you modify your strategy to achieve even better results.

TRACKING LEADS The best way to track inbound marketing leads is by using a customer relationship management (CRM) system. A CRM lets you organize information on your leads such as their contact information, deals and activities to manage your sales process.

Examples of what you can track include:

• Source of the lead, for example, email sign-up, website, social media

• What the lead specifically wrote when contacting you

• Interactions, such as emails or calls, between your company and the prospect

Free and low-cost cloud-based CRM tools you can use include HubSpot CRM (http://www.hubspot.com/products/crm), Insightly (https://www.insightly.com), Zoho CRM (http://www.zoho.com/crm) and Salesforce (http://www.salesforce.com ($25/user/month).

Within different inbound marketing activities, you can also track the effectiveness in terms of conversions and level of engagement, depending the channel.

WEB AND LANDING PAGESWith inbound marketing, your website and landing pages will likely be the primary place you get your leads from.

You can use Google Analytics (http://www.google.com/analytics) to track the number of pageviews and visitors that the website and individual pages have, as well as set conversions/goals. This data lets you answer questions like, “what percentage of people visited the contact page and filled out the contact form?”

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DID YOU KNOW?

Using a customer relationship management (CRM) system increases closed sales by up to 29%.

Source:  7 Ways CRM Can Increase Your Sales [Infographic], Salesforce.

Introduction to Inbound Marketing

If you’re using a plugin to create website forms, such as contact forms or download forms, plugins such as Gravity Forms (http://www.gravityforms.com) automatically track the number of times the form was displayed and how many times it was submitted.

If you’re using third-party software to create landing pages, such as Unbounce (http://unbounce.com), it will automatically track the number of visits and the number of downloads. Some services also allow you to create different versions of a landing page to optimize the design/messaging.

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Example of a landing page from Kissmetrics software.

Introduction to Inbound Marketing

SOCIAL MEDIAEach major social media platform has their own system of tracking engagement with your followers. You can use the figures to refine what you’re posting, when you’re posting, and how frequently you’re posting.

Twitter Analytics – Visit https://analytics.twitter.com for the number of impressions and interactions (clicks, favourites, retweets) for all your tweets.

LinkedIn Company Page Analytics – Click on the “Analytics” tab of your LinkedIn page to view the number of impressions and interactions for your updates.

EMAIL NEWSLETTERSMonitor the total number of newsletter sign-ups, and if you’re using an email provider such as MailChimp (mailchimp.com), you can also configure sign-up forms to show you the source of the signup, such as a specific web page URL or a section of your website.

For newsletters you send, the email newsletter provider should have reporting on which individual recipients opened the newsletter, who clicked on clinks in the newsletter and if any email bounced.

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Twitter’s analytics dashboard shows how followers interacted with your tweets.

Introduction to Inbound Marketing

Further Reading & Resources

INBOUND MARKETING• What is Inbound Marketing? (HubSpot)

http://www.hubspot.com/inbound-marketing

• 21 Essential Strategies for Growing Your Business With Inbound Marketing [Infographic] (HubSpot) https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/inbound-marketing-strategies-for-business-growth

CONTENT MARKETING• 17 Tips for Creating a Content Marketing Plan (Sprout Social)

http://sproutsocial.com/insights/content-marketing-plan/

• The Advance Guide to Content Marketing (Quick Sprout)http://www.quicksprout.com/the-advanced-guide-to-content-marketing

• The 5 Kinds of Posts That Every Blog Needs (Neil Patel)http://neilpatel.com/2016/05/30/the-5-kinds-of-posts-that-every-blog-needs-and-how-to-create-them

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)• The Beginner’s Guide to SEO (Moz)

http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo

• 24 Simple and Free SEO Tools to Improve Your Marketing (Buffer)https://blog.bufferapp.com/free-seo-tools

• The Definitive Guide To Higher Rankings For WordPress Sites (Yoast)https://yoast.com/articles/wordpress-seo

SOCIAL MEDIA• The Beginner’s Guide to Social Media (Moz)

http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-social-media

• A Beginner’s Guide to Lead Conversion with Social Media (KissMetrics)https://blog.kissmetrics.com/lead-conversion-with-social-media

• 15 Ways to Boost Your Social Media Marketing in Under an Hour (Buffer)https://blog.bufferapp.com/boost-your-social-media-marketing-in-under-an-hour

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EMAIL MARKETING• 85 Ways to Build Your Email List: A Sumo-Sized Guide (SumoMe)

https://sumome.com/stories/email-list-building

• The Marketing Field Guide (MailChimp)http://mailchimp.com/resources/guides/email-marketing-field-guide/

• The 6 Email Marketing Metrics & KPIs You Should Be Tracking (HubSpot)https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/metrics-email-marketers-should-be-tracking

WHITEPAPER/LANDING PAGE DESIGN• 101 Landing Page Optimization Tips - An Opinionated Guide to

Conversion (Unbounce)http://unbounce.com/101-landing-page-optimization-tips

• The Most Beautiful Landing Pages (Vandalay Design)http://www.vandelaydesign.com/beautiful-landing-pages

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List of Inbound Marketing Tools

BUILDING A WEBSITE• WordPress (free) - https://wordpress.org• WordPress Themes (free) - https://en-ca.wordpress.org/themes• Premium WordPress Themes - http://themeforest.net/category/wordpress• Google Mobile-Friendly Test - https://www.google.ca/webmasters/tools/

mobile-friendly

WEBSITE ANALYTICS• Google Analytics (free) - http://www.google.ca/analytics • Website Speed Test (free) - https://tools.pingdom.com

COLLECTING LEADS• LeadIn, WordPress plugin (free) - http://leadin.com• SumoMe, WordPress plugin (free) - http://sumome.com

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)• Google Keyword Planner (free) - https://adwords.google.com/

KeywordPlanner • Google Search Console (free) - https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools • Yoast for WordPress (free) - https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-seo • Moz ($99 and up) - http://moz.com

SOCIAL MEDIA SCHEDULING• Buffer (free) - http://bufferapp.com• HootSuite (free) - http://hootsuite.com

EMAIL MARKETING SOFTWARE• MailChimp (free and $10/month and up) - http://mailchimp.com • Campaign Monitor ($9/month and up) - https://www.campaignmonitor.com • GetResponse ($15/month and up) - http://www.getresponse.com

LANDING PAGE TOOLS• Unbounce ($49/month and up) - http://unbounce.com • LeadPages ($25/month and up) - https://www.leadpages.net/products

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About Venture Accelerator Partners

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Venture Accelerator Partners provides B2B sales, marketing and inbound lead generation services to startups and fast-growing organizations. Our clients range from mobile start-ups, large industrial companies, to major financial services companies.

Since being in business in 2008, VA Partners has helped drive millions of website visitors, hundreds of qualified meetings, and millions of dollars in revenue for clients.

Our team is passionately committed to growing revenue for growing companies. Some of our recent accomplishments include:

• Generated $500,000 in new revenue for an oil and gas provider in the first year of the engagement

• Helped create a $2 million annuity stream for a financial services company• Closed $300,000 in incremental revenue working six days per month for a

client• Boosted website traffic and inbound leads by 300% over 6 months for a

growing enterprise sales training company• Secured partnership meetings with Fortune 500 companies like RIM,

Microsoft, ADP and more

Companies work with us to establish sales processes, revamp marketing, build and optimize websites for lead generation, leverage social media, build a sales funnel of qualified leads, close deals faster, and save money with experienced resources.

To learn more about our sales and marketing services for growing B2B businesses, contact us at info@vapartners.ca or (647) 401-7156.

VA Partnerswww.vapartners.ca321 Carlaw Ave, Suite 202 Toronto, ON M4M 2S1

Twitter: http://twitter.com/vapartnersLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/venture-accelerator-partners-inc-

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